The Mayor of London is an elected politician in London, United Kingdom, who heads the Greater London Authority and is responsible for budgeting and strategic planning of some governmental functions across the whole of the region of London. These include transport, the police, fire and emergency services and economic development. The first elected Mayor of London was Ken Livingstone, who was re-elected in 2004. The Mayor of London was the first of the directly-elected mayors in the United Kingdom; others have since been created.

The Mayor of London is also referred to as the London Mayor a form which helps to avoid confusion with the Lord Mayor of London, the ancient and now mainly ceremonial post of Mayor for the City of London.

The Mayor of London is elected for a fixed term of four years, with the first election held in May 2000. The 2000 campaign was incident filled. The eventual winner, Ken Livingstone, went back on an earlier pledge not to run as an independent after losing the Labour nomination to Frank Dobson. He had earlier indicated in 1998 that he would only seek one term (which he confirmed during the 2000 campaign) when he said in response to the GLA white paper "If I am lucky enough to be elected as London's first mayor ... I would not want to serve more than one term".

The Conservative Party had to replace Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare as their candidate when he was charged with perjury; Steven Norris was selected as his replacement despite tabloid revelations about his many extra-marital affairs. The Liberal Democrat candidate was Susan Kramer.

In 2004, the second election was held. After being re-admitted to the Labour Party, Ken Livingstone was the official Labour Party candidate. He won re-election after second preference votes were counted with Steven Norris again coming second.

As with most elected posts in the UK, there is a deposit—in this case of £10,000, which is returnable on the candidate winning at least five per cent of the votes cast.

Initiatives taken by the Mayor of London include the Congestion charge on private vehicles using Central London on weekdays, and the London Partnerships Register which was a voluntary scheme without legal force for same-sex couples to register their partnership, and paved the way for the introduction by the United Kingdom Parliament of civil partnerships. Unlike civil partnerships, the London Partnerships Register is open to heterosexual couples who favour a public commitment short of marriage.

Elections

• London mayoral election, 2000
• London mayoral election, 2004

External links

• Mayor of London website
• Page about the process of nomination
• Page about Ken Livingstone's relationship with Labour